Here is a picture of household net worth in nominal and real terms, along with my current forecast for the third quarter.
Figure 1: Household Net Worth (blue) as of Q3 2024 (blue square), in billions of dollars Real Household Net Worth (tan) as of Q3 2024 (brown triangle), in billions of 2022$. NBER defines recession dates as gray, from peak to trough. Real net worth, deflated using chained CPI, September values use Cleveland Fed current standards as of October 6, 2024. Source: Federal Reserve funds flows from FRED, BLS, Cleveland Fed, NBER, and author’s calculations.
Nominal (real) net worth is currently forecast to increase by 2.5% (2.3%) q/q in the third quarter.
Nowcasts for household net worth were generated through log-log regression (2021Q3 to 2024Q2).
value = 14.184 + 0.382sp500 + 0.243house
Adj-R2 = 0.91, SER = 0.013, DW = 2.22, NObs = 12. Bold indicates significance at 10% msl, HAC robust standard error.
